Sunday, February 6, 2011

Ginger Ale

I visited Sofia, Bulgaria after 3 weeks in Turkey and about 12 hour on a bus from Istanbul. It was June and extremely hot, and we had been living mostly on fruit, bread and tomato sauce due to a restricted budget, so our energy level was a bit low at the moment. Coming into the home of the two Bulgarians that let us stay on their sofa, was like an oasis. There apartment high up in a house in the outskirts of the city where cool, cosy and they treated us with a wonderful breakfast. That's just one of the advantages with living at peoples home, they might treat you with some home made sour dough bread.

Why I'm talking about Bulgaria? Well, first of all, from the little I've seen it's a beautiful country. Second of all, for the second morning we got a glass of their home made ginger ale. Dimiter, who had made it, said it was to stay healthy, and I'm sure he was right about that. The drink was extremely strong, with large chunks of ginger floating around. It was refreshing, but also left a slight feeling of pain in your mouth. When Martin decided he wanted to make some a few days ago, we agreed on making it in a more pleasant level of strength. It came out great, so I wanted to share it with you.

Ginger Ale

Do not use a glass bottle for this, I heard it might explode from the pressure.

Peel and shred the ginger finely. Mix ginger, yeast, sugar and lemon juice in a 1,5 litre/ 50 oz plastic bottle. Fill up with cold water and make sure the tap is tightly on. Let sit in room temperature for 12-36 hours, until the bottle is very hard and it has reached your desired level of bubbles. Chill and strain before serving with a lot of ice and lemon slices.

Fanny - I actually waited and bought the ginger when I finally found a good source. The recipe came out fantastic and very bubbly even though I reduced the sugar and only used 150ml. Had the whole thing in a huge glass jar over night before I strained + filled it into grolsch bottles. I let those stand at room temp for a day and put them into the fridge for two days. I'm sipping on my last bottle right now, it's such a treat for me as I usually don't buy sweet sodas. Thanks for sharing the recipe! I'll make sure to mention it in my next blog post. :)